Lament - Maggie Stiefvater

I won a copy of Maggie Stiefvater's Lament from Jessica's a few months back (ok, this post was originally started in September) and I had started this blog entry when I had finished, but I got a bit behind on posting so you'll be seeing a few "older" reads pop up on here.


Sixteen-year-old Deirdre Monaghan is a painfully shy but prodigiously gifted musician. She's about to find out she's also a cloverhand—one who can see faeries. Deirdre finds herself infatuated with a mysterious boy who enters her ordinary suburban life, seemingly out of thin air. Trouble is, the enigmatic and gorgeous Luke turns out to be a gallowglass—a soulless faerie assassin. An equally hunky—and equally dangerous—dark faerie soldier named Aodhan is also stalking Deirdre. Sworn enemies, Luke and Aodhan each have a deadly assignment from the Faerie Queen. Namely, kill Deirdre before her music captures the attention of the Fae and threatens the Queen's sovereignty. Caught in the crossfire with Deirdre is James, her wisecracking but loyal best friend. Deirdre had been wishing her life weren't so dull, but getting trapped in the middle of a centuries-old faerie war isn't exactly what she had in mind . . .

Lament is a dark faerie fantasy that features authentic Celtic faerie lore, plus cover art and interior illustrations by acclaimed faerie artist Julia Jeffrey.

I'm going to preface this by telling you that faeries aren't really my thing. The most I've read about faeries would be the small portion dealing with them in the Sookie Stackhouse books and that was too much for me. They just like to play with people way too much and that trait tends to irk me.

I think my biggest issue with the book was how some things just seemed to be known without talking about them. For instance, Dee and Luke were talking and all of a sudden she knows the person he's talking about is the faerie queen. Up until that point, there was absolutely no mention of a queen. There were other things like that that I just couldn't get over.

I also thought it was highly weird and slightly creepy that while Dee is getting sick in the bathroom, a boy just walks in and starts holding her hair and she never questions it.

The book itself wasn't bad though. I really enjoyed the relationship between James and Deirdre and really wish that was more prominent than hers and Luke's relationship, and that is the reason why I will read Ballad. Plus, I liked it enough to want to see where the story goes and I have to absolutely hate a series to quit it.

What's your least favorite creature?

Paranormalcy - Kiersten White

Last month I read Kiersten White's debut novel, Paranormalcy and I absolutely adored it!

I'm going to make this pretty short and I'm not going to give a summary of what it's about but I DO want to say that I cannot wait for the next book. Kiersten, you totally had a grand-slam with this one.

I wasn't sure how I was going to like it because of the fairies. Fairies are the single most annoying supernatural creature, in my opinion, but she made it work. It did help that they weren't the primary focus of the book.

This book reminded me a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (tv show) and I couldn't help but hope that someday Mr. Pointy would meet Tasey and they would go off on adventures of their own. How awesome would that be?!

For the record, I'm still not sure if I trust Lend. I got this feeling about him when he was introduced and although he hasn't really done anything shady, I'm really expecting him to do something nefarious.

Go pick it up if you haven't read it. It's totally worth it and if you don't like it? Well, you'll have a beautiful cover on your shelf. Seriously though, you'll like it.